ShaunCarter.com

I was comped a suite at the Four Winds Casino in New Buffalo Michigan this past weekend and despite the room being free, I was not very satisfied. My stay was plagued with problems, not only with me but as I waited in line to ask questions of the front desk attendant several other guests were lodging identical complaints.

The room itself was very well appointed, comprised of a lounge, fridge, microwave, whirlpool tub, two flat panel televisions and a very large enclosed shower. I took some pictures when I first got into the room:

Notice the minimum room rate posted on the door – $1,000? I laughed when I saw that.

The problems I experienced during my stay included:

• Wireless Internet was not working in the rooms (no explanation or information given from hotel staff except it has been broken for a while and sometimes works only in the lobby). There were no ethernet cable hookups in the room either. The only way to access the Internet from a room would have been to access the dataport in the phone if I had a dial-up account.
• Rooms were extremely warm and setting the thermostat to the coldest setting didn’t do any good. I heard other guests complain about this issue and request fans to be placed in their rooms only to be told that there were no fans for guest use.
• Video checkout and hotel information via the televisions was not accessible because of “no signal”.
• I tried several times to make phone calls from my room only to have the phone cut out after about two minutes into each call.
• The coffeemaker in my room did not work.

The Four Winds opened in August and apparently still has not managed to work out the kinks in their system. Judging by the quality of the room layouts and furnishings, the hotel could be competitive for the AAA diamond award somewhere around the 3-4 diamond range (similar to the Soaring Eagle Casino in Mount Pleasant Michigan). But the poor service and lack of working amenities will kill any chance this hotel has of earning any meaningful rating.

Ironically, yesterday (just the day after I returned from my trip) I received a call offering me a free room this week at Four Winds. Well, even though the room is free – I’d rather stay somewhere with working Internet and a temperature controlled room and pay for it than have to put up with those problems in a free room. Or better yet, I’ll only be making day trips to this particular casino in the future.

Technorati Tags: four winds, soaring eagle, casino hotel, casino, resort, michigan, shaun carter, new buffalo, mount pleasant, gambling, rooms, AAA